Ribbon man activity in and around Athy

Two hundred years ago Athy, like many other parts of Ireland, was the scene of ribbon men type activity. The so called Ribbon Society was an agrarian secret society formed in opposition to the Irish landlords system. Their members got the name ribbon men from the green ribbon worn about the neck as they went about their nocturnal activities. It is uncertain whether ribbonism was organised in the South Kildare area or whether the various ribbon like actions were uncoordinated activities of unrelated local groups. Following the suppression of the 1798 Revolutionaries and the Emmett insurrectionist five years later the Irish countryside remained relatively peaceful for a decade or two. Overseas visitors felt sufficiently encouraged to visit Ireland and one such visitor was Rev. James Hall, a Church of England Minister who arrived in Ireland in 1813. He visited Athy having travelled from Dublin by the canal boat which berthed overnight at Cloneybeg. Travelling into Athy he first visited the Catholic chapel of St. Michael’s on the Monasterevin Road the building of which had started some years previously. In those days the Church of England adherents worshipped in churches while dissenters and the unreformed Catholic Church were designated as worshipping in chapels. Rev. Hall describes the Catholic Chapel as quite new but not yet finished. It had no seats or pews which he claimed was a common feature in Irish Roman Catholic chapels of the time. When he visited the Church of England church at the rear of the Town Hall he described it as “small and very ill attended”. He wrote “indeed as I afterwards found the Established clergy in this as well as many other parts of the country get their money for doing little better than nothing”. Athy was a poor town having suffered the loss of tanyards and the winding down of the local distilleries and breweries. Unemployment and wretched living conditions nourished the seeds of social discontent and criminality in the area. Thomas Rawson, captain of the Athy local yeomanry constantly reminded the officials in Dublin Castle of the need for vigilance for it was claimed by another local “the system of swearing in the lower classes is going forward”. Following the arrest of a number of men in Kildare the ever vigilant Thomas Rawson wrote to Dublin Castle in January 1814 requesting additional troops for Athy “as the Protestant minds of Athy are in great alarm”. The Dublin Castle authorities sent a company of infantry to join the 6th Dragoons and the members of the Clare militia who were already stationed in the town. Shortly afterwards Thomas Fitzgerald of Geraldine House forwarded a number of resolutions to Dublin Castle which had been passed at meetings of the local people of Athy in July 1814. The resolutions noted that “the towns people were annoyed at the idle, wicked and ill founded reports which were allowed to be circulated day after day following the Kildare’s men arrest”. In addition to the usual garrison Fitzgerald claimed a field officer party of the 6th Dragoons marched in while all night guards and sentries were posted at all the entrances to the town of Athy. This Fitzgerald said was unnecessary and only served to keep Athy in a state of alarm for upwards of ten days. The extra troops were removed from the town and around the same time the Peace Preservation Force (forerunners of today’s An Garda Siochana) was established. Its members took the place of the local yeomanry which was abolished. Within a year a number of incidents in or around Athy were the first indication of the resurgence of ribbon men activity in South Kildare. Attacks on the homes and buildings of local farmers were noted with concern and Thomas Rawson was again to the forefront in informing the Dublin Castle authorities of ribbon men activity in and around Athy. He informed the authorities in December 1822 of a meeting “in Murphy’s public house in Athy on Saturday, 21st of December at which there were 12 men who agreed to take up arms”. Rawson’s information was apparently correct for in a short time thereafter the farmhouse of a mill owner located within two miles of Athy was attacked by 15 men. The farmers servant was viciously assaulted and the dwellinghouse extensively damaged. Further reports noted the houghing of cattle belonging to the Duke of Leinster’s agent and that of Reverend Charles Bristow, the local Church of England curate. A local man Patrick Brady who was transported to Australia for stealing pigs in early 1825 wrote an account of the ribbon men activity in South Kildare. He claimed that William Murphy publican swore in men to take the life of Captain Lefroy. He named them as James Hutchinson, Thomas Ging, Michael Ryder, James Anderson, Daniel Bryan and Terry Neil. He further claimed that a committee calling themselves the Knights of St. Patrick’s met quarterly at Murphy’s public house and that their object was an uprising all over Ireland in 1825. What action the authorities took on foot of this letter is unclear but the successful prosecution of several local men for cattle houghing apparently had a salutary effect on the local ribbon men. The following years gave rise to only sporadic outbursts of ribbon men type activity such as the burning of the Athy residence of the Chief Constable Dolman in 1825 for which two local men, King and Hutchinson were arrested.

World War I refugees in Monaghan

Recent large-scale objections in Dublin to the State’s continuing efforts to accommodate Ukrainian refugees reminded me of similar opposition mounted by many persons in Oughterard a few years ago. That west of Ireland community successfully stopped plans to use a nearby hotel as a refugee centre, even though the hotel had been vacant for several years. I was surprised by their action and by that of the Dubliners, remembering how many communities throughout Ireland acted speedily and with commendable charity to help families who fled their homeland at the start of World War I. I first became aware of the help given to Belgian refugees in 1914 when I lived in Monaghan town in the late 1960s during my time there as town clerk. One of the many roles performed by a town clerk is to manage council housing estates of which there were many in Monaghan at that time, with names honouring noteworthy persons of the past. One housing scheme stood out, simply because its name clearly had no connection with either Irish personages of past importance or the commonly known Monaghan place names. I knew the estate as Belgium Square, but in fact its correct name was Belgian Square. Intrigued as how the name arose I approached Paddy Turley, the long serving editor of the local newspaper ‘The Monaghan Standard’ to be told the full story behind the naming of Belgian Square. A call went out at the start of World War I for Irish local authorities to accommodate Belgian refugees fleeing from German troops advancing into Belgium. One of the many Councils who responded to the call was Monaghan Urban District Council. The Council members hosted a meeting in the local courthouse, following which a Belgium refugee committee was formed. This followed a decision of the Urban Council two years previously to convert the then vacant Monaghan Military Barracks, the former home of the Monaghan Militia, into Council houses or as they were known in those days ‘artisan houses’. In addition to the Barracks conversion the Council also agreed to build 16 three-bedroom cottages on what had been the military barracks parade ground. The cottages were nearing completion in October 1914 when the Belgium refugee crisis arose. In what might be seen as an extraordinary generous act, Monaghan Urban District Council decided to make a number of the newly built cottages available to accommodate refugees. The ‘Northern Standard’ reported as follows:- ‘The party of Belgian refugees allocated to Monaghan arrived here on Friday morning by the 9.50 train from Belfast. News of their coming had got through the town and there was quite a large crowd present at the station, and prominently displayed in the button hole or on the breasts of practically every person were the Belgian colours.’ The local refugee committee provided the families with furniture and food and a collection was later taken up at all churches in Monaghan parish on behalf of the refugees. The Belgian refugees had a very good relationship with the local people in Monaghan, so much so that at an Urban District Council meeting in 1915 the Council members agreed to call the newly called housing scheme ‘Belgium Square’. This is a name I remember, although a wall plaque at the entrance to the square, has the name Belgian Square. Monaghan Urban District Council’s response to the refugee crisis of 1914 was replicated in other parts of Ireland at a time when many young Irish men had enlisted to fight in the war. About 3,000 Belgian refugees came to Ireland in the last months of 1914 where they were accommodated in Workhouses in Ardee, Dunshaughlin, Balrothery and I believe several families found shelter in Naas and Celbridge. The Celbridge Workhouse accommodated 36 Belgian refugees from October 1914 until the spring of the following year when they were transferred to the Workhouse in Dunshaughlin. The refugees accommodated in Monaghan, with one or two exceptions, returned to their homeland at the end of World War I. However, Belgian Square Monaghan was to house up to 20 Catholic families who fled from Belfast during the anti-Catholic riots of the early 1920s. Kildare County Council officials have been engaged in finding accommodation for refugees for the past year and Athy today hosts several individual refugee families. The difficulties faced by these families, uprooted from their homes and separated from their own communities, is difficult to imagine. They can only look to us for help and unlike those communities who had turned their backs on refugees, the people of Athy, will I am sure, welcome the displaced families from Ukraine and other war torn countries into our community. 2022 will shortly pass, leaving behind memories of happy days, but also less happy memories which are an inevitable part of our daily lives. Lets look forward to a new year with a promise of happiness and good health for all. Happy Christmas to all readers of Eye on the Past.

St. Vincent de Paul Society Athy

The local conference of the St. Vincent de Paul Society is the oldest voluntary organisation in Athy. While I don’t have a record of when the Athy conference was founded, I have come across references to it in local newspapers as long ago as 110 years ago. At the start of the last century adults of working age in Athy had limited opportunities for full time or even part time employment. The brickyards, of which there were many in this area, provided mostly summertime work for both men and women. The farmers in this area also provided seasonal employment for agricultural labourers, but there were no jobs available for the majority of the adult males of the town. Families living in the privately rented houses which lined the alleyways of Athy were extremely poor. The houses they occupied were generally two roomed cottages which the Urban District Council of a generation later would demolish under the Slum Clearance Programmes of the 1930s. The then St. Vincent de Paul Society members in Athy provided comfort and financial assistance for the many needy families in the town as the charitable organisation continues to do so to this day. An entry in the minute book of the local Urban District Council for 21st February 1933 can give us some understanding and appreciation of the difficulties facing many Athy families at that time. The minute book reads: ‘A special meeting of Athy Urban District Council was held to meet a deputation from the local St. Vincent de Paul Society to discuss the stress prevailing among the poor of Athy caused by the bad weather. The Vincent de Paul Society was represented by T.J. Brennan, Dan Carbery and Fintan Brennan. It was agreed to set up a Distress Committee consisting of the members of the Urban District Council and representatives of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. The town clerk and Fintan Brennan were appointed secretaries of the committee.’ Last week the local Lions Club held its annual food appeal to help the St. Vincent de Paul Society here in Athy and the generous response of so many was acknowledged by the Lions Club President Brian Dooley. The family needs which the St. Vincent de Paul Society seek to meet can at times seem overwhelming, but the continuous generosity of the local people is of great help to the society. Many thought that the harsh times of the past had gone, but the Ukrainian war and the difficulties created by inflation have created enormous problems for many families within our own community. Families, many of whom never expected to have to call on St. Vincent de Paul Society for help, are now experiencing great financial difficulties. For more than 177 years local conferences of the St. Vincent de Paul Society throughout Ireland have been helping the less fortunate in Irish society. Sad to say their services are needed even more today than ever before. Last year St. Vincent de Paul Societies throughout Ireland gave assistance amounting to almost one hundred million euro to families in need. The escalating cost of rent, food, electricity, and fuel is affecting us all but having a devasting effect on families surviving on inadequate pensions or income. The Mission Statement of the Society of the St. Vincent de Paul shows that it is a Christian voluntary organisation, working with people experiencing poverty and disadvantage. Inspired by their principal founder Frederic Ozanam and their patron St. Vincent de Paul, the Society members seek to respond to calls for help in a non-judgemental and dignified manner. No work of charity is alien to the Society members, but they cannot continue their good work without the contribution of those within our community who are in the position to do so. The Society members are always open to applications from persons in need and they are committed to respecting the dignity of those they assist and fostering self-respect. The Society is also committed to identifying the root causes of poverty and social exclusion and in solidarity with people experiencing poverty and disadvantage, to advocate and work for the changes required to create a more just and caring society. The Lions Club Food Appeal in aid of St. Vincent de Paul has already passed and the collection at church services on Sunday will have taken place before this article appears. However, there is still an opportunity for anybody who was not in a position to contribute to the Lions Club collection or to the church collections to make donations at the St. Vincent de Paul shop in William Street, Athy or to send donations directly to the St. Vincent de Paul headquarters in Dublin, which contributions I understand will be redirected to the local conference here in Athy. Christmas is a terrible time to be poor. With your help the Athy conference of St. Vincent de Paul Society can reach out to the local parents and children in need and help them share in the enjoyment of the Christmas season.